I already told you that SF4 is exactly what people *don't* want to go back to. The game was widely criticized for the fact that you had to buy every upgrade or be left behind. You might be the only person in the world who thinks that's better than what we have now. By the way, despite characters not being DLC when they should've been, SF4 *did* sell costume DLC, which you seem to think is the worst thing ever. IIRC, the kicker with SF4's costumes is that your opponent couldn't see them unless they also bought the costumes, and that was also something people disliked because they didn't want to buy costumes no one will see.

Can *you* go one interaction without the excessively hostile tone? We started this conversation because you said that the act of selling anything at all in games is predatory.

>I did. I just didn't give you the clean yes-or-no you're prepared to posture about. If I ask you a yes-or-no question, and you say 'nuh-uh', you did not answer the question. In fact, you haven't answered a single question I've ever tried to ask you over the course of this conversation. Do you play competitive fighting games at all? Do you know anything at all of this world? Do you seriously think having to pay for every edition of SF2 and SF4 separately is somehow better than being able to continue playing against anyone even with the base game? Should the games I know and love be able to exist in the form that made them the games I know and love? >You forgot your own examples include games that did not have this business model, but still plainly got made, and had major updates, and took a shitload of your money. No, I gave you an example of a game that broke compatibility and was widely criticized for doing so. It is not a model that we should ever go back to, no one else in the world besides you likes that. The new model is better because it preserves compatibility. Do you understand the point I am making here? >I know you understand charging money for things inside a game can be abusive. Yes, sometimes some things *can* be. But you're arguing that *everything* is, and that is what I disagree with. And I feel that by being so aggressive towards things that are perfectly reasonable, you only end up making it harder to talk about real problems.

I know what you said, and I know we're on the same page because we've been talking about concrete examples where you say the DLC shouldn't be allowed to be sold. I don't know why you're up here trying to play some silly semantics games.

The DLC is content in the video game. That's why you can see it, even if you haven't paid for it. Welcome to the conversation. For the love of god, do not make me rub your nose in this a seventh time.

That is what it means, to sell content. That is what actual expansions are. This song-and-dance where you have the whole game, but you're not allowed to *really* have the whole game, is inseparable from everything you would call predatory. It's only a matter of degrees. One of the several alternatives you've repeatedly ignored is that these additions can be added to the game people already bought. Surprisingly, this does *not* involve slave labor for artists, because games that stay popular keep selling more copies. Do they make as much money? No. But it turns out maximum corporate revenue is not a guideline for ethics.

> Should the games I know and love be able to exist in the form that made them the games I know and love? Are we still pretending that paying for whole editions doesn't serve the same function? Are we still ignoring subscriptions because they make you feel icky? Are we still not acknowledging games that get updated for years, to keep sales up, and *then* have sequels? > It is not a model that we should ever go back to Well there's one question answered, albeit still on the basis of 'ick.' It existed - it was profitable - but we can't do it ever again because that's the same as a whole existing game being *banned.* Blah blah blah. I understand that compatibility is preferable. I am telling you it's not worth preserving this business model. This is the *gentlest* this business model could *possibly be,* and it has still created a typical 1v1 with a total price that's fucking bonkers. Compatibility is also possible through the just-update-the-damn-game model. Like how nobody charges five bucks for improved netcode. That also costs money to create, and is surely a key part of improving past the initial version. Funny how it's just taken for granted as part of the game you already bought.

Yes, I know how DLC works. And I disagree with your blanket opposition to all DLC ever.

It is not inseparable from predatory, because it is not predatory to begin with. The idea that they should just make all DLC free is not a viable alternative.

We can't go back to an objectively worse model because no consumer in the world besides you would be okay with it now that a better model is possible. You cannot be serious trying to say you think we'd ever go backwards. The current model *is* updating the game. Everyone gets to play the latest update even if you do not pay for the DLC. I am also still baffled that you can somehow claim with a straight face that subscriptions are better. Subscriptions are a lock-in model that threaten you with losing everything as soon as you stop paying, so you'll have to keep paying forever to keep your game. **If anything in this conversation is predatory, it's subscriptions!**

Horse armor was above-board, relative to this. I keep telling you the precise shape of the problem, and you keep going 'yeah, something else.'

'This is the gentle end of a spectrum where the far end is clearly predatory.' *'So this is predatory?'* Fucking aggravating.

'Stop calling everything predatory, you're killing the word!' I didn't call everything pr-- 'You know what's predatory? *Paying for services!*' I'm out.

I'm done playing your weird word games. We've been talking about a concrete example, one where you say this example is pReDaToRy simply because it involves DLC, and I take issue with you drawing that line. You can't pretend you're actually saying something else at the same time.

Is DBFZ predatory or not?

Please explain to me how a lock-in model that forces you to keep paying forever in order to keep what you already paid for is better than just being able to buy something once and have it.